In capital P politics, the electoral governments kind, the closest connection it has ever had to gaming came via Hilary Clinton’s now infamous “Pokemon Goto the polls”, or possibly Ace Watkins' run to be a Gamer President. Now, the chatter is that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been playingWorld of Warcraftas part of their Democratic campaign for President. The problem is it’s not quite true.
Kamala Harris does indeed have aTwitchchannel, but thus far it has only been used for the fairly standard purpose of streaming rallies, debate footage, or other clips either from Harris herself or her running mate Walz. The reason this is on Twitch is because this is where some of the audience are. Trump has a Twitch channel too, and it airs much the same thing. So what’s with World of Warcraft?
Tim Walz’s Twitch Experiment Failed
Earlier this week, Walz hosted a rally in Arizona. This was a key battleground in the 2020 election, where Biden won the 11 electoral votes by just 0.3 percent, after Trump beat Clinton there in 2016 by 3.5 percent. 2020 was the closest in Arizona’s history, so Harris and Trump will both see it as a winnable territory. As part of this strategy, Walz turned Arizona to Azeroth.
While the rally was being shown on the Harris Twitch channel,streamer Preheat costreamed himself playing World of Warcraft. Walz was nowhere near World of Warcraft (he’s more of a Dreamcast guy), and in all likelihood has never played it. Overall, it was a bit underwhelming, as the WoW stream (or possibly the Walz rally) just ended up as a distraction. It was not a particularly cohesive union of the two ideas.
The ‘plus’ side of this is that no one really cares. It’s not going to be a news story on the level of making a gaffe at a debate, so the failed experiment can be crossed off the list and the campaign goes on. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, is the only actual gamer of the foursome, and any attempt to bring up Walz’s flop would likely alienate him from his voting base who had no idea Walz even did this.
Twitch Is A Swing State In The 2024 Election
While traditional media doesn’t always take gaming seriously (hence why this won’t be a news story outside of gaming publications), it’s obvious why Twitch is being utilised in this way. So many times at TheGamer we have had casual, non-work group calls and I (professionally minded grown-up) have suggested Google Meet, only to be overruled by the energy drink youngsters demandingDiscord. There are people whose main media consumption - what ugly words we have for things these days - is not in the cinema or on television or through their earbuds, but on Twitch.
This is not the only time this base has been tapped into, either.The US Army had a much criticised Twitch channelthat posed as a regular content creation outlet despite its primary aim being driving enlistment in young men. As I mentioned earlier, Trump’s channel also streams clips of rallies from Trump himself or Vance, although neither have resorted to World of Warcraft.
It does feel a little bit like brainrot culture in action, however. This time it was World of Warcraft, a legitimate stream on Twitch, where thousands of Warcraft streams with views from the single digits to the hundreds of thousands happen every day. But the position to the side of the video, and the use of it as a salve to stop your mind from drifting, felt almost like bartering. Next time it could be Subway Surfers, or Stewie Griffin highlights, or cutting up bars of soap.
The way to appeal to gamers is to meet them at their level. WhenAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed Among Us, it suited the more casual approach, she was actually doing it instead of getting a streamer to do it for her (though she did play with high profile streamers, as well as fellow Ilhan Omar), and on the rare occasion she talks about games, it is with the natural tone of someone who grew up playing them and still likes to dip in when their busy schedule allows.
Most politicians are old - Biden is 81, Trump 78, Walz 60, and Harris 59. Vance is the youngest at 40, but his genuine experience of gaming has not been tapped into. Whether this is because the campaign doesn’t feel Vance himself appeals to this base, whether it’s Trump’s reluctance or lack of understanding over gaming as a man in his late 70s, or just because costreaming with WoW seems a little bit cringe, thus far the closest Trump’s side has gotten to this angle is getting Elon Musk up on stage. It went about as well as Walz’s stream.
This is an election where numerous states are predicted to be very tight, and there are hundreds of demographics and microdemographics to consider on the campaign trail. However, this may not be the last we’ve seen of the 2024 Presidential election courting the Gamer Vote.
